My New Blog

Since having a blog is so much fun, I've decided to have two. I hope that you will visit Recipes for Ben, which I started working on a few days ago.

My son Ben lives all the way across the country in New York City. I'm sure he mostly eats take-out, but sometimes he calls up to ask about a recipe he remembers from his childhood. Writing this new blog will be the next best thing to cooking for him.

If you are a blogger, you will be interested to note that the feature that allows you to list your labels on the sidebar works really well for a recipe blog, eliminating the need for any other system of indexing.

One other note--I would love to include photos of the dishes that I cook, but my food photography is really, really bad. I study food blogs to try to understand where I am going wrong, but I haven't figured out how to make things better. Take a look at the blog, Desert Candy, for some very nice food photography done by the blogger, Mercedes; or Jane Brocket's tasty photos on the baking section of her blog, Yarnstorm. I'll keep admiring their photos, and working to improve mine.

Pancake Week on The Zees Go West; An Index

You can find more recipes of all kinds on my other blog, Recipes for Ben.

Best Pancake Recipes
Cheese Blintzes
Cottage Cheese Pancakes
Dutch Babies
French Pancakes
Healthy Whole-Grain Pancakes
It's Time for Pancakes!
Making Chocolate Chip Pancakes Without Singing
Pancake History
Pancakes for Your Face
Pannekoeken Recipes
Pumpkin Pancakes in Sugar Season
What to Put in Your Pannekoeken
Yogurt Pancakes

Southwestern Foods on The Zees Go West; An Index

Spring cleaning! It's time to de-clutter and tidy up at The Zees Go West. The next blog post or two will consist of indexes to help you find your way around and to minimize some of the stuff on the side of the page.

Note: You can find more recipes of all kinds on my other blog, Recipes for Ben.

Best Green Chile Cheeseburger

Blue Corn Meal

Chipotle Recipes

Green Chile Recipes

Harvest Time in Clovis

Honey Spreads

Little Fires in Your Mouth

More Chile Sweets

Peanuts!

Pinto Beans

Posole

Red Chile

The Search for Local Honey

Which is Best--The Owl or the Buckhorn?

Wineries in New Mexico

Dutch Ovens

Fresh biscuits at the
Duke of the Dutch Oven Cook-off




Did you know that the Dutch oven is the State Cooking Pot for Utah? As a way to honor their pioneer forbearers, the Utah State Legislature named it so in 1997. Utah is home to the International Dutch Oven Society, the site of the World Championship Dutch Oven Cookoff , and is a place where Dutch oven usage is still widespread.

Learn all about cooking with a Dutch oven and get some recipes for the kind of food made by the cook on the trail—beans, meat, potatoes, sourdough biscuits, dump cake, and peach cobbler--on the Cowboy Showcase.

Pancake History

The Food Timeline website is written by Lynne Oliver, a reference librarian with “a passion for culinary history.” Here is a tiny taste of what Oliver has to tell us about pancakes.

"Pancakes, as we Americans know them today, were "invented" in Medieval Europe. Throughout history, pancake ingredients (finest available wheat flour, buckwheat, cornmeal, potatoes), cooking implements (ancient bakestones, medieval hearths, pioneer griddles perched on campfire embers, microwave ovens), social rituals (Shrove Tuesday crepes, Chanukah latkes, mass quantities for community fundraisers) and final product (thick or thin, savory or sweet, slathered with butter and smothered with syrup, or gently rolled around delicate fruit) have reflected regional cuisine and local customs. Cake-like galettes [France], thick potato pancakes [Germany], Boxty [Ireland], paper thin crepes [France], palascinta [Hungary] drop scones [Scotland], coarse cornmeal Indian cakes [colonial America], flapjacks [19th century America], rich blini [Russia], poori [India], qata'if (Middle East) dadar gutung [Indonesia], bao bing [China] and simply-add-water instant mixes [late 20th century] are all members of the pancake family."

To learn more about pancakes and how they are cooked, the place of pancakes in cultures around the world, and for a sampler of historic pancake recipes, go to the Pancakes & Crepes section of the Food Timeline.

Best Pancake Recipes

Back near the beginning of this "Pancake Week," which has somehow stretched into nearly two, I gave you my best yogurt pancake recipe. Today I would like to direct you to some other "best" recipes. Here are some sites to start with:

101 Cookbooks.com: My Favorite Pancake Recipe

Recipezaar: The Best (No Kidding) Buttermilk Pancakes

Baking Bites: Crepes for Pancake Day

For a nice big list of every kind of recipe from everywhere—India to Ireland—and with every kind of ingredient from sour cream to lavender and from matzoh meal to red lentils, go to the Global Gourmet and search the word pancakes.

We're almost at the end of this pancake celebration. Please join in by sending your own favorite pancake recipes via the comments. You know how I love to get comments--otherwise, how do I know who is reading?

Cheese Blintzes

In the 1950s, Cheese Blintzes were a big favorite at luncheons for the ladies. I don't have a copy of my mother’s recipe, but I found this one on Cooks.com.

Cheese Blintzes

2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt

FILLING:
1/2 lb. hoop cheese [dry cottage cheese] or Ricotta
1 sm. pkg. cream cheese
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tbsp. butter, melted
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Dash of cinnamon

Make batter by adding milk to salt and eggs. Sift in flour gradually until smooth. Heat 7 to 9 inch iron skillet, grease with butter. Pour in enough batter to cover bottom of pan, tilt quickly to cover evenly. Cook on 1 side until it blisters. Quickly turn out onto towel-covered board.

Filling: Leave cheeses at room temperature. Mix with fork, combine with rest of ingredients. Place heaping tablespoon of filling onto uncooked side of blintz. Fold envelope style. Cook in heavy skillet in small amount of butter until lightly browned on both sides.

Serve with sour cream and/or strawberry jam.

Pumpkin Pancakes in Sugar Season

Back in New Hampshire during maple sugar time, we sometimes took the family on the beautiful drive to the Monadnock region to visit Parker's Maple Barn. There was always a line to get in for breakfast, so we would get our place reserved and then head over to the sugar house to watch the syrup-making process. It was usually freezing cold, and often snowing or raining, so when we got too chilly we would warm up in the gift shop. When our names were finally called over the outdoor loudspeaker, we would step into the big restaurant/barn that smelled of wood fires, maple syrup, and breakfast.

My favorite was the pumpkin pancake breakfast. What follows is not the Parker's recipe, but one that I put together that reminds me very much of the great breakfasts we had together there.

Pumpkin Pancakes

3 eggs
1 cup yogurt
¼ cup molasses
1 cup cooked or canned pumpkin
2 tbl. melted butter or vegetable oil
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. each: cloves, mace, ginger
Strong coffee

Mix first five ingredients together in a large bowl; sift the dry ingredients and add to the pumpkin mixture, stirring in enough coffee to make the batter the consistency you like.

Serve pancakes with warm applesauce or maple syrup.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Elva's fancy 50s kitchen.
It even had a wood-fired grill with a copper hood.














My mother, Elva, was born in 1914 on a farm in eastern Canada. In her lifetime she saw amazing things--families changed over from driving horses to driving automobiles, the national highway system was developed, telephones were installed in homes and then the cell phone was invented, and household labor savers like vacuum cleaners, automatic clothes washers, dishwashers, and the microwave became common. We got our first television set (black and white, of course) in the early 1950s, opening up a whole new world of entertainment with its three channels. Computers were invented and changed over time from room-sized to pocket-sized. The Internet was really getting going in her later years, but I could never interest her in it.

One thing always remained the same with my mother. She loved to cook--whether on the wood cookstove of her youth or the fancy GE countertop burners in her first new house in the 1950s--and she loved to try out new recipes. Here is one of her favorites, probably cut out of a magazine in the 1960s.

These pancakes are very tender.

Cottage Cheese Pancakes
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup milk
4 eggs
¾ cup flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 tbl. melted butter or vegetable oil

Separate eggs, beat whites, set them aside. Beat yolks with cottage cheese. Sift dry ingredients, add to cottage cheese mixture. Fold in egg whites. Makes about 20 pancakes.

What to Put in Your Pannekoeken

The Dutch Pancake Café (Nederlandse Pannekoeken Café) in Stowe, Vermont serves their pannekoeken in the traditional Dutch way, with the added ingredients cooked into the pancake. Their mouthwatering menu, quoted below, will have you packing your bags for Vermont. In the meantime, this list will give you some ideas for your own pannekoeken.

"We serve over 80 varieties of 12 inch sweet and hearty Dutch Pancakes. Dutch pancakes are specially prepared, crepe-like pancakes with a variety of ingredients baked in. Pancakes range from apples, cinnamon and bacon to chocolate chip with cream to shredded potato, onion and cheese."

DUTCH PANCAKE MENU

THE SWEET SPOT

Apple Cinnamon: Fresh Apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon.

Blueberry Cream: Maine blueberries with whipped cream.

Chocolate Chip: Plain pancake with chocolate chips.

Apple Blueberry: Fresh apple slices with Maine blueberries.

Banana: Fresh sliced bananas cooked inside.

Coconut Chocolate Chip: Plain pancake with chocolate chips and sprinkled with shredded coconut.

Banana Blueberry: Fresh sliced bananas with Maine blueberries.

Banana Chocolate Coconut: Fresh sliced bananas cooked in then topped with chocolate chips and toasted coconut.

Apple Raisin: Fresh apple slices with raisins.

Fresh Strawberry Banana: Plain pancake topped with fresh sliced strawberries(seasonal) and bananas finished with whipped cream.

Banana Pineapple: Fresh sliced bananas with diced pineapple.

Strawberry, Chocolate, and Cream: Fresh sliced strawberries (seasonal) on top of pancake drizzled with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Maple Walnut: Pancake topped with walnut-infused maple syrup.

Banana Walnut: Fresh sliced bananas with chopped walnuts.

Pineapple Almond: Diced pineapple topped with toasted almonds.

Lemon Butter: Spread with lemon compound butter and sprinkled with confectionary sugar.

Pineapple Coconut: Diced pineapple sprinkled with shredded coconut.

For an extra special treat add a Belgian chocolate truffle cup of Vermont's own Ben & Jerry's French Vanilla ice cream.

HEARTY HELPINGS

Shredded Potato, Onion and Cheese: Sautéed potato and onions cooked into the pancake with cheddar cheese. Served with sour cream and applesauce.

Italian Sausage, Peppers and Onions: Sliced Italian link sausage with sautéed red and green bell peppers and onions.

Bacon, Cheese and Tomato: Crumbled crispy bacon, cheddar cheese and fresh diced tomato.

Tomato, Onion, Mushroom and Cheese: Fresh diced tomato and onion with sliced mushrooms and cheese.

Ham & Swiss: Diced ham and Emmanthauler Swiss cheese.

Spinach, Onion, Mushroom and Bacon: Sautéed fresh spinach, onion, mushroom slices and crumbled bacon cooked into the pancake.

Sausage Gravy: Plain pancake served with a side of southern style sausage gravy.

Apple Bacon: Fresh sliced apples and crispy crumbled bacon.

Broccoli and Swiss: Sautéed fresh broccoli florets and Emmanthauler Swiss cheese.

BaconCrumble: Crispy bacon in pancake.

Potato, Broccoli, Ham and Cheese: Sautéed fresh red potatoes, broccoli florets and ham topped with cheddar cheese.

Pineapple Canadian Bacon: Diced pineapple accompanied by thin slices of Canadian bacon.

Canadian Bacon and Cheese: Thin slices of Canadian bacon and cheddar cheese cooked in pancake.

Bacon and Cheese Crumble: Crisp bacon and cheddar cheese cooked in the pancake.

Vegetarian Canadian Bacon and Pineapple: Thin slices of soy based Canadian bacon and diced pineapple.

Vegetarian Italian Sausage, Peppers and Onion: Spicy Italian vegetarian sausage with sautéed bell peppers and onions cooked in the pancake.

NEDERLANDSE PANNEKOEKENCAFÉ SPECIALTIES

Breakfast Pannekoeken: Eggs and bacon or sausage cooked in the pancake and topped with cheddar cheese.

The Rembrandt: Apple, shredded potato, pineapple, raisins, ham and cheddar cheese seasoned with curry.

Farmers Pannekoeken: Sautéed shredded potato and onions with tomato and cheese.

Nor-Easter Pannekoeken: Apple slices with walnuts and raisins sprinkled in.

Vegetable Fantasy: Basil pesto, artichoke hearts, sliced black olives, tomato and cheese.

Hawaiian Pannekoeken: Ham, pineapple and Swiss cheese.

Pina Colada Pannekoeken: Pineapple, banana and toasted coconut pancake topped with whipped cream.

Fresh Fruit Pannekoeken: Featuring the freshest in seasonal pickings layered on top of a pancake.

Pannekoeken Recipes

My son suggested that I include some pannekoeken recipes as a part of this series. These are the real Dutch Pancakes, as opposed to those delicious Dutch Babies that I featured on the blog yesterday.

Rich Vermunt, on his delightful web page called Dutch Cooking, which is part of his larger site Going Dutch, tells us that the best pancakes are made with yeast. The first recipe below is another variation which uses lots of eggs instead of yeast, and the yeast pancake recipe is also given (in Rick's words). Be sure to visit his website--it's a very entertaining and informative introduction to The Netherlands.

Ingredients for one large pancake:
1 cup flour
salt
2 large eggs or 3 medium (fills ½ cup when beaten)
1 cup milk
at least ¼ cup butter or margarine
(multiply the above recipe with the number of pancakes you wish to make)

Put the flour and salt in a bowl, make a well in the middle and add the beaten eggs. Mix to a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk. Melt half the butter in a heavy skillet. Pour the batter into it. Turn these pancakes frequently, each time adding some butter. They should then become golden brown and crisp at the sides.

Gewone Pannekoeken (Regular Pancakes).
This recipe makes 4 big pancakes.
4 cups of flour (or 4 cups of proprietary pancake mix if available)
salt
1 cake yeast (60 grams) [or 1 tbl. dry yeast]
4 cups lukewarm milk
butter or margarine

Put the flour and the salt in a bowl. Make a depression in the center. Add the diluted (with a little milk) yeast. Add 2 cups of milk and mix to a smooth batter. Add the rest of the milk. Leave to rise for three quarters of an hour. Heat enough butter in a heavy skillet. Pour in part of the butter and fry the pancake on both sides. You can toss the pancake in the air for turning, if you like. Try out with someone standing by to catch them is advisable if this is your first attempt ! :-) Otherwise use a spatula. Keep them hot in the warming drawer and serve with sugar or molasses, golden syrup or treacle.

Tomorrow: Some serving suggestions for pannekoeken.

Dutch Babies

Here is a treat for a special breakfast. These pancakes are simple to make but impressive to serve, as they puff up beautifully.

Dutch Babies
This will make one 8-9 inch pancake.
2 eggs
½ cup flour
½ cup milk
¼ tsp. salt
2 tbl. butter

Put the butter in a Pyrex pie plate, place the plate in a preheated 400 degree oven for 3-5 minutes to melt the butter. Beat the eggs well in a bowl and add the flour, salt and milk; stir or whisk until smooth. Take the hot pie plate out of the oven and pour the egg mixture into it.

Return the pie plate immediately to the oven and bake 25 minutes or until the pancake is puffed up. Remove from oven and sprinkle with powdered sugar or topping of your choice. Serve immediately.

French Pancakes

Long ago, my then-10-year old son studied a breakfast menu carefully in a restaurant and announced to the waitress in a clear and carrying voice that he would like to order "the French creeps, please." I believe this recipe is what he was thinking of, because it was always a popular one in our home. It comes from an older edition of The Joy of Cooking. I hear that the new edition no longer contains this recipe. I can’t imagine why they would leave it out.

French Pancakes (or Crepes)

Sift these dry ingredients:
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp powdered sugar

Mix these ingredients in a bowl with a whisk:
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla, or a little grated lemon rind
1/3 cup water

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir a bit, just until the dry bits disappear. Lumps are ok as they will disappear during the cooking. Spray a little cooking oil in the pan, or wipe quickly with a paper towel scrunched up and dipped in vegetable oil. Pour in a couple of tablespoons of the batter and swirl the pan to spread it around. Cook until a peek underneath shows that the pancake is brown, flip it over to finish cooking, and put it on a plate to keep warm in the oven.

These can be rolled up with jam; or with powdered sugar, butter, and/or lemon juice.

Making Chocolate Chip Pancakes Without Singing

Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be any more pancake videos, I bring you one showing the right way to make pancakes. There are no funny songs that will stick in your head, I promise. This comes to you from startcooking.com, a great place to learn basic techniques.

Healthy Whole Grain Pancakes

This recipe verges on being good for you, except for the sauce. Perhaps you can come up with a healthier orange alternative.

Whole Wheat Pancakes with Orange Sauce

2 cups whole wheat flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbl. brown sugar or honey
3 eggs, separated
2 cups milk
½ cup oil

Sift flour with baking powder, salt, sugar. If using honey, add it to the milk and oil. Beat milk and oil into beaten egg yolks.

Combine wet ingredients with dry, fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Cook on griddle, serve warm with orange sauce.

Orange Sauce: Combine ½ cup butter, 1 cup sugar, ½ cup frozen orange juice concentrate. Bring just to a boil, stirring constantly.

Yogurt Pancakes

Here is my very best pancake recipe ever. It evolved from a 1960s Sour Cream Pancakes recipe, but this version is much better for you.

2 eggs
¾ cup plain yogurt
2 tbl. vegetable oil

1 ¼ cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. sugar

Milk or water to blend.
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Mix the first three ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients and add to wet mixture. Stir in milk or water until the batter is the right consistency. I'll leave the cooking part up to you, but I hope you'll use a very hot griddle.

Optional: Add blueberries, fresh or frozen.

Chipotle Recipes

Photo from MexGrocer.com

Last week in the post called Little Fires in Your Mouth I promised to find some recipes to help us all use up that everlasting little can of chipotle chiles. I'm sure you remembered to put the contents of the can into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Those little chiles will last almost forever in your fridge, so you will need these recipes.

First off, I wasn't sure exactly how chipotles are made. I checked around and found from a variety of sources that chipotles are smoked and dried red jalapenos, and red jalapenos are simply green ones that have been allowed to ripen further on the vine. They can be purchased as pods, as chipotle powder, or canned in adobo sauce, which is made of tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, salt, and spices. Here are some of the things you can do with them.


Chipotle Chile : A nice selection of low-fat recipes, plus information on smoking your own chipotles.

Chipotle Recipes from AllRecipes.com

Chipotle Recipes on Epicurean.com

Enchiladas Chipotle

Vegetarian Chipotle Chili

More Chile Sweets

Part of being a Zee is that thing that makes me veer from subject to subject, from piñons to politics and back again. If you will recall, a few days ago we were discussing chile sweets and, as promised, here are some links to some that you can buy or make yourself.

There is a recipe for Albuquerque Piñon Red Chile Fudge on Recipezaar, or you can buy some all made by The Candy Lady in Albuquerque. They feature chocolate or vanilla red chile fudge, vanilla jalapeño fudge, and chocolate or vanilla piñon fudges.

Señor Murphy, a candymaker in Santa Fe, offers chile peanut or piñon brittle, chile cream chocolates, red and green chile jellies; and a chile addict basket that includes Red Chile Peanut Brittle, Chile Pistachios, Chile Creams, Red/Green Chile Jelly, Chile Peanuts, and Chile Pistachio Bark. For a wonderful description and some delicious-looking photos, check out what Gil's Thrilling Web Site has to say about Señor Murphy's.

The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Taos makes red chile fudge as well as green and red chile brittle. Their web site is gorgeous, and is probably fattening just to look at.

Check out Sweet Heat and Daring Desserts to find recipes for Piñon Pepper Brittle, Warm Chocolate Pecan Pie, New Mexican Hot Chocolate, and Devilish Mousse, all of which contain either red or green chiles.

I hope you’re still with me, because this last one is terrific. Pepperfool has some incredible recipes. By all means check out the whole web site, but first go to their Desserts page to find recipes ranging from Dave’s Insanity Squares to Jalapeño Milkshakes.

Little Fires in Your Mouth

Photo from MexGrocer.com

Chiles for dessert? At first it might be hard to imagine these fiery little vegetables as part of your sweets, but when you’ve had some time to digest the idea it no longer seems so strange. To New Mexicans, who all seem to be addicted to chile anyway, this is just another way to get our fix. After all--hot and sweet together? What’s not to like?

While taking part in a discussion on New Mexican Foods over at the New Mexico forum on the City-Data website, I was intrigued by the mention of red chile fudge. It sounded like a novelty item, just another way to market something from New Mexico. A little exploration and research proved otherwise. There is a wide spectrum of these sweet-hot desserts, as you will see if you read this blog over the next couple of days.

After my research, I was ready to try out a recipe. I wanted brownies with chipotles, but all the recipes I found were pretty complicated and called for way more chocolate and sugar and butter than I wanted to use. So I turned to my favorite brownie recipe, Immediate Fudge Cake, from my ancient copy of Peg Bracken’s Appendix to the I Hate to Cook Book(1966). Here is the variation that I came up with:

Chocolate Chipotle* Brownies
Note: These are best accompanied by a glass of cold milk, to put out the little fires in your mouth

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp. vanilla
¾ cup flour
¼ tsp. salt
½ cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts
2 chipotle chiles, chopped fine

Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave. Add the remaining ingredients, stir well (be sure the chiles are well distributed!). Bake in a greased 8” by 8” pan at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Glaze while still warm with:

Chocolate Glaze
½ square unsweetened chocolate
1 tbl. butter
1 cup powdered sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
Tiny pinch salt
A little strong coffee

Melt the butter and the chocolate in the microwave, add sugar, vanilla, salt. Beat the mixture well, adding a bit of coffee, until it is the consistency you want.

*Chipotles: Buy them in a can. They are called Chipotles in Adobo Sauce. Store leftovers in a glass jar in the refrigerator. They will go a long way. I will scout out some recipes to help us all use up the rest of the can, and publish them in a future post.

Posole

Photograph from Library of Congress*











Posole defined:

1. Kernels of corn that have been soaked in lime water, hulled, and dried.
2. Hominy and pork stew flavored with red chiles



Posole stew is a New Mexican tradition and can be ordered as a side dish in many New Mexican restaurants. You can order some real NM posole from the resources below, or you may substitute yellow or white canned hominy in the recipes.

Blue Corn Posole recipe, resources, and a wonderful memory about eating posole at San Ildefonso Pueblo

A nice collection of New Mexican Posole Recipes

Posole Recipe courtesy of Comida de Campos farm and cooking school, Embudo, N.M.

Posole recipes from the Santa Fe School of Cooking

Posole Stew, A New Mexico Holiday Tradition

If you have a moment, take time to read this evocative New York Times article--In Pueblo Food, Deep Respect for the Earth, which includes a recipe for posole. They might spell" chile" as “chili” but they know how to make New Mexican food sound delicious.
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*The Library of Congress knows of no restrictions on the publication of this photograph. If you do, please let me know via the comments section on this blog.